Hello, Hello Facebook

I know, I know - it's been just over 24 hours since I suspended my Facebook account. I'm sure there's quite a large handful of you out there who had been placing bets that it wouldn't be forever, or even for very long. But my reasons for coming back are not the reasons that I imagine y'all were betting on. I'm not "addicted" anymore than any other communications medium is addictive. However, in the approximately 30 hours I was without a Facebook account, I realized something - Facebook is the ONLY way I was communicating with certain old friends who I do, in fact, value my friendship with. When I left Facebook, I wasn't just saying goodbye to the well-intentioned yet completely unfounded concerns and ideas of those who I barely know.

I was saying goodbye to a communications tool that has enabled me to maintain good friendships with people I've only met in passing in real life. People like Julie Bayer, who visited Montana from California a few times but I have otherwise only kept in touch with on Facebook. When I was driving through California this fall, I stayed with the Bayer family and they felt like best friends due to the communication and friendship that Facebook helps to support. People like Greg Kay, who I met at a family reunion once, and lives in Japan. Yet, despite the distance and lack of real-world friendship; has been a great friend and a trusted person to talk to in Facebook world.

These are just two examples of the positives of Facebook. Facebook also enables me to connect with other face painters, see and share ideas. It enables me to find resources I need - and it even saved me money on a hotel room in Las Vegas last month. Facebook is neither good nor bad. It's how you use it.

Finally, I realized the truth of a lesson Miley Cyrus learned a few weeks ago. Facebook isn't the problem - Twitter is. Sure, Facebook is how most people were reading my tweets - but my tweets, not my stuff on Facebook, were the cause of the negative environment that I wrote about in my last post. So don't be expecting tweets from me anymore. Will I leave Twitter and delete my account entirely? Nah. I follow people on Twitter and get quite a bit out of it, and I might tweet some completely non-personal, interesting stuff. Like a link to this blog post. But no more tweeting my thoughts and my random every move. That is the real problem.